Mystique
by Terres De Brume
Summary: Raven doesn't even need to knock: Charles is already at the door, hugging her with all the strength of his arms and tenderness of his mind. -Spit In My Face Verse


**Note:** Takes place about two months after _The Measure of Trust_, the Christmas before _Coming Home._

**Mystique.**

Raven doesn't even need to knock: Charles is already at the door, hugging her with all the strength of his arms and tenderness of his mind and for one split second, she wishes he could come back in her mind and soothe from the inside. The thought doesn't last: she's too proud to ask him, and he's too afraid to come back of his own volition. He is out of her head forever.

Still, it doesn't mean he can't comfort her, and she buries her nose in the crook of his neck; his skin is soft against her scaly cheeks, and his smell is the same as she remembers from her youth: clean skin, soap, a hint of aftershave, but no cologne, because too strong smells disturb him –they're reserved for those thankfully rare times when he has trouble coming back to his own head… strong smells help, then. She breathes him in deeply, remembering old stuffed toys and the violins of Mozart's works, the images Charles used to create for her of dolls dancing endless roundabouts.

It's safe and warm and she relaxes a little, enough to sniff the last of her tears away and take a step back from Charles, though she doesn't let go of his shirt, and takes a deep breath. She should be at Hank's now, that's where she was supposed to spend Christmas holidays, but then she asked a question she probably should have kept to herself and Hank hadn't answered the way she expected him to and then they argued and she pretty much broke up with him so can she please, please, please crash on the couch for the break?

Charles says yes, of course she can, and Erik grunts because apparently she interrupted a date night –complete with _French wine_ and everything- but he goes to check on Ororo one last time –Raven is never going to believe him again when he says she's not his daughter- and then pecks Charles on the lips and leaves, stomping much less strongly than Raven would have expected after being this clearly cock-blocked.

He hides it well, but Erik can really be a nice guy, sometimes.

"Azazel was just… _looking_, you know? And Hank, he never reacts to that, it's like he never notices," she explains later when she's curled up besides Charles on the couch, clad only in his least formal shirt with a _foie gras_ toast in her hand –she's entertained the thought of going for ice-cream when depressed, long ago, but Charles said if she wanted to drown her sorrow in food, she could at least choose goo food; she protested, of course, but then Charles quoted his father and that was that. Raven learned early on not to argue when Charles quotes his father- "I wanted to know why he never reacted… He doesn't even believe it's _possible_, Charles! He doesn't even think _anyone else_ could be interested in me!"

She sets her toast down with rather more force than necessary and, for once, doesn't spare a thought at how snob it is that she's having _foie gras_ in lieu of consolation snack. She's too angry to spare any thought to that.

"He thinks I'm _ugly_ Charles!"

"In all technicality, I think he thinks the two of you are ugly," Charles says softly, sadly.

"So what? He's be dating me for more than two years because he thinks he can't do better?" she lets out a wretched sob, and Charles tightens his hold on her shoulders, sighing in his hair like he does when he doesn't have the answer to a question. He could have an answer to that one, Raven knows, but the fact that he's too moral to pry in other's brains is one of the reasons why she respects her brother so much. "I'm not a consolation prize, Charles!"

"Of course not!" Charles answers fiercely, "you're a wonderful girl, and anybody would be lucky to have you!" He sighs, deep and weary, like it happens too often since the President announced a tightening of the control measures for Mutants. "But Hank is right in that many people don't see that. They don't see you like I do, they just see a color that shouldn't be there and assume the girl wearing it shouldn't be there either."

"So much for beauty being on the inside!" Raven spits.

"Oh, it is. Trust me, I'm well aware that the soul –or mind, whatever you want to call it- of a person is what makes their true beauty… or ugliness. Trouble is, too many people would rather trust their eyes than their hearts, because they're afraid if they're honest with themselves, they'll discovers they're not as beautiful as they want to think they are. When they see you skin, your hair, your eyes, they see someone different enough on the outside that they can pretend you're different on the inside. They see someone they can blame for their own faults and they use the scapegoat instead of trying to get used to your not being like them."

" 'Get used' to it," Raven snorts, "like it hurts them to see me!"

"That is, sadly, just how stubbornly stupid people can be," Charles sighs, and he kisses her brow. "But you were never anything but perfect to me, Raven. Infuriating and nerve wrecking sometimes, but just the way you're meant to be. It is the only reason why I didn't make you look more ordinary all the time."

"You would have?" Raven exclaims as she shoots up, wounded.

"Only to protect you!" Charles assures her, grabbing her wrist –she could throw him off easily, she's much stronger than a girl her built should be, but she doesn't. "If it meant keeping you safe, if it meant you wouldn't get hurt, yes, I would," Charles says seriously, honestly, because he never lies, "to be honest, I considered it when you first went to school. I knew I wouldn't be there to protect you and I was afraid what would happen… it's only when I realized hiding all your life would hurt you that I decided otherwise. But yes, if I could have asked that of you without hurting you, if that had been the best solution for your wellbeing, then I would have asked you to keep an ordinary appearance at all times, because I always knew people were going to be afraid of you, and I know what fear leads to."

"Things like Bloody Sunday," Raven murmurs and she shudders, still standing, as Charles' hold on her wrist tightens. Bloody Sunday, she learned early, should never be mentioned about Charles, because whenever someone brings the topic up, he looks like he's about to throw up everything he ate the month before, and she never wants him to look that bad, but she thinks it's time they talk about it now.

"Yeah," Charles says, careful, "things like that. What do you know about it?"

"Same as I've known since I was twelve. Remember that time I had to pick a song and write a paper about it? History, meaning and all?"

"You picked _Bloody Sunday_."

"It made you cry _every time_ you heard it. I wanted t know why, so I chose it and did my researches… I'd recognize you face anywhere, Charles. Even as a five years old boy covered in blood. At least," she tries to joke, "now I know why you never eat any meat unless it's near coal."

"Probably, yeah," Charles answers quietly. "Also the reason why I've been checking every one of your friends' minds since you've been old enough to meet new people."

"You never told me you did that."

"Never told you I didn't, either."

"Charles…."

"What?"

"Who was she?"

"Who?"

"You know who. The girl. They don't say anything about her in the papers apart that she spit some explosives. The only thing they do after that is rant about the 'mysterious seizure' striking the cortege… I'm guessing it was you, right? You lashed out."

"Seeing a someone's head explode in your face and then feeling seventy five bullet hit you father's body tends to do that to a person."

"It's not funny Charles."

"We'll I'm not laughing." Charles slumps in his seat and his fingers release Raven's wrist, but she still sits back next to him and wraps her arms around his waist. "Her name was Angel Salvadore. She said she wanted to be a ballerina, but her real dream was to be in the air force. The only good thing about that is that she never had to learn she wasn't allowed to fulfill her dream. She had dragonfly wings, you know. I wish I could have seen her flying for real. I remember her coat, all red and nice and polite. At the time, I thought she was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. Of course, I didn't know I'd meet _you_ yet."

"Yeah well, you're apparently the only one who sees me this way," Raven pouts, but she's not surprised when Charles looks at her like he's heard the true bitterness in her voice.

"No I'm not," he says, "Darwin thinks you're lovely."

"I don't want to be 'lovely' (she makes the word sound like an insult) I want to be attractive, I want to be _sexy_ damnit! I'm tired of always being nice little Raven, Charles' little sister… you're my brother, you practically raised me and I love you, but I'm more than your shadow! I'm more than my scales, I'm more than Hank's pity date! I want people to stop avoiding my gaze, I want them to _look_ at me!"

"And they'll learn to, sooner or later," Charles says, placating.

"I don't want it to be later," Raven seethes, and it's only now she realizes how truly angry she is, how she _hates_ that place people put her in, this weird spot nobody can physically place but where they put everyone and everything they don't want to look at.

She's been there all her life with only Charles as a link to the outside world, because nobody ever looked at her as more than Charles' sister. She thought, she really thought, _wanted _to think Hank was the one who'd think differently, who'd understand enough to really _look_ and _see her_, but she was wrong: Hank is no different than the others, he looks at her and he sees _abnormal_, he looks at his reflection in the mirror and he thinks _freak_, and she's thought it too, thought it for _so long_ despite Charles' love and his care and his acceptance, and she's _tired _of it, tired of seeing herself the way the world sees her, tired of being nothing but poor Raven, all scaly and blue and _weird_, and it's high time she starts showing them how wrong they are, high time she stops behaving like a victim if she doesn't want to be one.

"Raven," Charles says tentatively, having probably picked on the new rigidness in her neck, the unusual hardness of her eyes, "Raven, what are you…."

"Mystique."

"What?"

"People don't look at Raven, they don't like her, they pity her. How can they not, when she pities _herself_? I don't want to be that girl anymore. I want to be Mystique now."

"I thought you said…."

"I know what I said Charles, but I was ten. Things changed. I didn't think it was really important at the time, choosing a nickname. I understand better now. Raven is the name humans gave me, a Human's name. It's time I realized I'm a Mutant, and nothing can change that."

"Raven…."

Charles sounds… unsure. Afraid. Like she's leaving him, and she wants to say it's not true, wants to say things won't change between them, except she's been raised by a man who never lies –or at least, not outright- and she's not about to do what he loathes the most, not now, not when she's closing such an important door in her life. She doesn't have her brother's brains, she knows that, but she's intelligent enough to know, now, that the nicknames they both choose for themselves when they were chipped are more than just words. She knows it's them, the _true_ them, once they've made their peace with being Mutants instead of Humans.

It's a fight she never knew she was fighting against herself, until Mystique emerged, proud and victorious.

Now she can say _Mutant and Proud_ and truly _mean _it.

"I'm sorry Charles," she says very quietly, "I wish things could stay the same but…."

"But this is what's good for you," Charles completes, throwing her off balance. "I won't lie, I wish I could keep my little sister but I… I don't need my power to see the difference between Mystique and Raven."

"One day, I hope Professor X will come to life, too," she says soft and bittersweet, and then she lays a kiss on Charles' cheek. "Goodbye, Charles."

He doesn't ask where she's going, because it's not _that_ kind of goodbye, yet, even though they both know she'll need to put some kind of geographical distance between them soon.

She leaves the couch and Charles' gaze doesn't leave her as she pulls off his shirt. She stands here, considering nakedness for a second, but decides against it and produces instead a white tunic that doesn't cover much but makes her skin look even bluer, her hair redder, her eyes almost glowing. She knows, from now on, that her difference will no longer be her weakness, no longer be her vulnerable spot: it's going to be her strength, the very starting point of everything she was and is now, and if other people don't wish to look at it, she'll shove it in their faces and make them _look_.

She was Raven when she came, small and trembling and her face puffy with tears. Now, as she walks into the night with her head held high and her back straight, she's Mystique, and she feels good.


End file.
